It's funny: having those actors in the club is simply a "production necessity" that we are supposed to shrug off--but a mismatch between 1681/1831 vessel registry numbers or the presence of Star Ships that have 1600 numbers in orbit or up on the Status board requires all kind of crazy logical contortions and gymnastics to explain away those production necessity inconsistencies.

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Really. I think it's an unsolvable puzzle because there is literally no right answer, in other words, the creators did not create a right answer so it does not exist. I doubt there is going to be a memo that materializes that explains the whole thing, so speculation is all you could have.

The Enterprise blueprints by Franz Joseph have some nice touches that only a fan can pick up on. "There are fourteen science labs aboard this ship!" Count 'em. "I'm in your Deck 6 Briefing Room." And it's there. But I would add a couple of things.

I wish he had included the Emergency Manual Monitor that overlooks the engine room. That's an obvious item and its absence is annoying.

And this thing with the Bridge being offset 36 degrees, that isn't necessary. If I'm not mistaken, FJ overestimated the size of the Bridge floorplan. If you correct for that, you'd have more room in the saucer's exterior structure that houses the Bridge. I think the elevator would then fit over on port side where you'd expect it, and the captain's chair can face forward instead of 36 degrees off.

The supposed elevator housing seen on the ship's exterior could be something else entirely.

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Now you understand why fans have been making and remaking these plans since then. None of them have been quite accurate or complete enough.

In 1975 I would have been stunned and dismayed to find out we hadn't sent another man beyond earth orbit since then. By this time, I fully expected manned bases on moon & Mars, with manned exploration ships plying the outer system.

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Our understanding and experience with regard to space travel has certainly matured since then. Although the launch pad disaster of Apollo 1 in late 1967 had shown us a glimpse of what could happen - it didn't really inform the production personality of the show - but Apollo 13, the Challenger disaster and the Columbia crash would really sober our enthusiasm and tempered our attitude towards headlong space ward advance.

Even with my criticisms I've long thought it would be cool to have seen an updated version of the Star Fleet Technical Manual. But the demand might not be there anymore. Today there are numerous websites with Treknical material (of varying quality) that can be accessed in an instant and without the expense of publishing and purchasing.

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It unfortunately says something about the modern mind that those of us who would be intrigued by the creative challenge of doing so, aren't necessarily those most likely to make their/our work available for free on the web.

Yet the "five year mission" of the Enterprise can't plausibly mean much else than a retrospective highlighting of those five years when Jim Kirk commanded her.

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Not likely, since the prologue of each episode plainly stated "These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. It's five year mission... To boldly go where no man has gone before". While a degree of poetry and hyperbole are permissible given the fact it is a prologue, it nevertheless can't go off half-cock claiming it is about a five year mission to go where no man has gone before if it is about the five years that just so happened to be the captaincy of James Kirk during which he went where people had already been.

What was seen in TOS is certainly not as open and shut as you claim. The fact that only starships like Enterprise were seen and that sometimes they were seen returning to base for resupply and repair can just as easily mean thirteen starships pushing beyond the frontier, zig zagging back when needed to distant starbases, on a five year deep space mission.

I like to think that the prologue is "out-universe" from the point of view of TOS, but "in-universe" from a later point of view - the POV of the telling of these stories.

That is, Kirk at the time of his adventures had no idea that they would last for five years. He didn't tick off days in a calendar: he just stayed out there, heroically defending the UFP ideals against bug-eyed monsters and scantily clad temptresses, until the call came to do something else.

What this "else" was, we don't know. A refit that spiraled out into a massive reworking that took years upon years and put Kirk behind a desk? A mandatory desk job for Kirk that sent the ship sailing under a different skipper? All we know is that it ended the heroic spell in the career of the Enterprise, and justified the retroactive labeling of the heyday as "the five-year mission".

As I have said before, the line that specifies Enterprise's gross tonnage as nearly a million versus its stated mass of 180,000 is likely referring to denenerate matter held for conversion to consumibles for crew and ship. 800,000 tons of it. Enough for the mission and more if needed. So yeah. Maybe.

As for ignoring the "five year" part, sure, whatever. It's there. It's stated. You can finesse it with the deft touch of a fan trying to make 800,000 tons fit in a 180,000 ton ship, but Occam and all. Do we assume he says it but that he really didn't have a "five year mission" or that he said it and did have a "five year mission"? To each his own.

If the ship has five years of food left as of SD 5423, doesn't that sort of suggest a ten-year mission?

Timo Saloniemi

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Not to me. If you're going on a five-year mission, you wouldn't just take what you think you'll need for five years. You plan for the unexpected and take as much as you can practically carry with you, and still meet all your other mission/logistical requirements.